There was once a time when Google was just the company that worked on Android and then shipped it off to anyone who wanted it, letting them create all kinds of franken-phones. But these days, things are different. Google's a company that should be taken seriously. And the Pixel 8 Pro proves it. That might sound a big strange, I realize that. After all, Google (or Alphabet, perhaps) is an absolute behemoth of a company. It has its fingers in many pies, and Android has been the other side of the mobile phone coin for years. But it's never really…